


My Lord, My King

by Yuri_the_Eighth_Demoness



Series: Rogue Kings of the Sibyl System [1]
Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: M/M, Yuri the Eighth What-Ifs, what-ifs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-05-14 18:25:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14774861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yuri_the_Eighth_Demoness/pseuds/Yuri_the_Eighth_Demoness
Summary: Kogami Shinya and Makishima Shogo find themselves living a rather u n u s u a l l y blissful life together in a village on an island remotely found in the Pacific, years after the failure of Sibyl's King System Project of which the two of them were both used as pawns to further the intentions of the hive mind.This is a little chronicle of their domestic affairs, leading to the revelation of the secret they had been harbouring, as the past continues to drag them back into the turmoil of the dysphoria they'd left behind.{ A short-shot test fanfiction for Psycho-Pass. }





	1. Lapsed into a Normalcy

**Author's Note:**

> To effectively create the conversation used in this fanfiction in reflection of the characters concerned, and to simulate how they would actually have interacted in the given situations, I spent actual moments talking with another intellectual, my good friend, Chrysa, whom for all her peculiar characteristics, reminded me of Makishima and had become t h e Makishima in this Epilogue.  
> We likewise both agreed to use in reference the books we had in our possession, hence, all the quoted portions - details be directly stated, implied, or otherwise - that one will find here are all from the materials we have both read through the years.  
> It was a fun test write altogether. And for that, my Iron Flower has my thanks. :)))

The island life was not so bad once you get used to it, as _Shinya Kogami_ had lately decided, having managed to stay here for three years and counting after that wretched phase that had befallen them in Japan.

He even at some point landed right smack in the middle of _that_ Southeast Asia Union debacle, tangling with the affairs that had eventually resulted in the _incomplete_ upheaval of _Shambala Float_ , but having done all he could, and actually just taking his sweet time before deciding, finally hauled his ass and eventually landed where he was now, in this remote paradise far off in the Pacific.

In reality, he had no choice but to follow the breadcrumbs, those subtle yet suspicious clues and hints that were left to him by that _man_ he had fled _dystopia_ with after at long last determining the Sibyl System to be nothing more but the questionable ideal that it is. A decision that had made his skin crawl at first, and still does on some occasion, because, for all its purposes, he was made to once more confront the face of the person he was _least_ expecting himself to _need_ in situations like this. Yet was the only logical choice there was to partner with for whatever cause he deemed.

Why?

Because they fit and were better off as allies than enemies. That had been proven correct back home, no matter if the said home was nothing but an epic cataclysm finally and seemed to him like no more than a figment of his imagination now, after being this far away from it finally. It was constantly getting proven as truth likewise out here, in the actual world where peace was what it was – a fragile vial of glass that could easily shatter with the slightest touch.

How did things…end up _like this_?

Walking the path towards the fields of the village, the former _Enforcer_ turned _Sibyl Black King_ turned rogue and, finally, an _escapee_ , was greeted by the locals along his way, dealing with small chatter every now and then from the members of the clans whose huts and houses were visible along the road. Amazing how these tribesmen and women had lived so far off and unaffected by the evolving world all over for centuries. It was as if they had been looking at all the other countries’ insanities from a safe distance and, seeing that the said insanities would not at all benefit them in any way, refused to let whatever change that was infecting the rest of humanity touch them, letting it slip from their grasp and simply moving on with their own lives as they have had for eons.

It had not been a waste for the community here that although their means and ways to surviving had retained its simplicity for years, everyone had a healthier, more positive outlook of the future. Now this was actually called living. Maybe that's why his decisive  _partner_ had not at all scuffed and fought being here. 

Having the freedom to decide on your own, how better to press forward with matters without the aid of some system that generally put things in a common and absolute perspective for you. You decide to be good because it was for the _common_ good. During the time that he’d spent here, Shinya Kogami actually saw and got a feel of what real peace was exactly like.

Again, the island life was not so bad… What was it? _A world in which ordinary things are done in an ordinary way_...

The Elders have taken a particular liking to him when _they_ arrived here originally, the women most especially for his good looks and generous muscles that he seemed to maintain rather effortlessly, his cut of hair left at that same crop it used to be though the breeze sometimes turned it into a sticky mess. Also because he seemed to have developed a relationship with the sea, often spending hours there at a time, diving into its depths. He valued its silence.

Though company in paradise was not terrible either, just _not like_ what it turned into when he was known to walk about these island paths.

By the time that he had made it to where he was intending to get to, he already had a retinue in check, villagers dogging his heels, discussing matters like the next harvest and the next butchering of cattle, or when to make a celebratory offering to the moon when it at last rises to mark their change in season. Trade and sailing. Those trifling matters.

Well, trivial only _to him_  sometimes but holding certain significance to everyone else here. Truth be told, it didn’t matter which deities there were that existed in this part of the cosmos. He would not be the killer of these beliefs because it gave the island its strength where no coefficients existed to make the measure of a man or hold him in line.

Everyone made it their responsibility to be at ease with their neighbours. There was no need for constant monitoring. There was an honour code in place and respected, and which was understood by everyone.

“It would be good to have you both during the ceremony,” the brother of the village chief, an old man with grey hair whose clan counted seven families and five extended, tapped Kogami on the wrist with a wrinkled hand as the latter was helping him along. He walked about using a cane carved out from an ancient hardwood tree common in the area surrounding the village, a privilege afforded with much ritualism to those elders of the tribe. “You’re _male_ wife was spotted among the sunflower fields earlier by the way, if he is whom you are looking for.

"And might we add he is _charming_ all the young women working there that perhaps we won't be able to make a proper harvest. You should go fetch him,” the old man added with a certain knowing glint in his wizened eyes, a smile that lit up his aged face.

Kogami kept it to himself, the picture those words produced, imagining them to be more or less true of _the other_ , among a select things that ran in his mind of the presence he chose to keep during his life here on this island.

If he himself had the charisma of a leader, the _other’s_ was on an entirely different league. It had the draw of a saint, someone who could sway the masses as he had done very easily before, influencing his targets for worse. Which was a wonder why someone like him somehow chose to live this life here with him to begin with. Makishima could have gone anywhere else in the world yet he was here.

Arriving at the end of the road, and at last left alone to his own thoughts, Shinya Kogami stood on the hill, looking forward towards the sea that made up the stretch of the horizon, where the storm clouds at times tend to roll and where some ships bobbed, but pulling his gaze back inland to where another sea was visible, one that _chased the sun_ in the form of its flowers, a cool breeze from the waters ruffling these golden crops.

There  _they_ were, the harvesting women, picking from among the taller stalks the ripe of heads, clasping them in bundles within the circle of one arm as with the hand of the other they cut down the sunflowers using sharp scythes. _Blades._ These were _that man’s_ favourite. Something about the arcane sharpness that brings out the ethereal beast in him.

Could that be the reason _he_ was here? Though the other did not appear to be in a mood for murder, has not been in _that mood_ in the last few years in fact, with a clearly undefined state that even the likes Sibyl's collective intuition could not comprehend, there was no real telling.

It irked the former hound but the other's existence to him was like a strange anchor to sanity somewhat, not like the devotion the other's previous amusements had provided, but this sort of nudge to reality. That evil can exist due a cause and the cause could not necessarily be evil in the beginning. A scenario that makes neither hero nor anti-hero as it was in _their_ case.

"Lord _Makishima_. Your husband."

Amber eyes turned towards the direction the kind lady had pointed to and caught the unmistakable silhouette there, of the man that in certain degrees was _alike_ to him, but his polar opposite, one more the honest shade darker. That made him smile.

"Oh Savage Garden, yielding such stubborn blooms."

Shogo Makishima held on to his sunflowers, giving Shinya Kogami a welcoming wave, a warm and almost surreal smile spreading across his face as the breeze caressed his cheek with the bright petals, his light hair, that expression like the light of day and, as the former enforcer approached, Kogami believed the _two_ to be one and the same thing. During instances when he forgets what a _monstrosity_ the other was, he sees _him_ as what the latter wanted the world to see him.

"Isn't this too early to be up and about?"

A normal conversation that took them years of practice to perfect, just so they would not be as they had been then, at each other's throat. A certain degree of civility, and an eye to overlook past mistakes no matter how wretched or hellish they were. Shinya kept reminding himself of the old adage like this mantra to keep himself grounded:  _enemies of the same, best be friends_.

In the case of him and Makishima Shogo, they were technically made into  _lovers_ of each other. Possibly the most gruesome situation that the King System had pushed them into becoming for Sibyl's sake. The means to that end. It was no doubt _disgusting_ the first time he woke up to the awareness of it, but had to assimilate into completely for the sake of escaping. Eventually, it had become normal between them, to share the same bed even as they had fled the System's grasp.

"If you keep me in bed any more, I'd be _too sore_ to do anything else."

Ah, he looked like some saviour, his length of hair in its current longer state providing a halo around his head. He was someone who appeared as if he could do no wrong when in truth he was among the worst, one that had the power to sway others to do his bidding, but, ironically, did not see himself as the puppeteer. He was a player of his own games. How _beautiful_ this deviant.

"I don't keep you in bed more than necessary. And it's always consensual," he tossed Shogo a light jest, muscles moving of their accord to thread his fingers through those _argentum_ locks.

A trick of simple affection that was more a deception to each other than anything, allowed, expressed often, the women who saw giggling at the display. Something that numbed over their hearts to make a couple of themselves, or so they make it. Makishima felt no shame pressing his cheek onto that palm in kind.

"I concede then, _my King_. Shall we head home then?"

This was a delusion wasn't it? To know the facts about each other and loathe them all, yet sticking to this routine just because you had been thrust into a similar deception and that _bound_ you irrevocably somewhat. All this should just be pretense, but what need was there for it? Although since the beginning everything was a _lie_ , what they have made of themselves here bordered what was real. 

For Sibyl was no longer here yet they still played the role of  _lovers_ , married to each other, the ink around both their right forearms attesting to the promise they swore covenant to during that ceremony here, on this island years ago.

The former enforcer turned, giving his _former_ nemesis his hand as it was expected that the other would take it. "I'll make breakfast. But are you bringing those with?" He pointed at the sunflowers.

* * *

The walk was lazy almost, taking time, as most things on this island where life itself was laid back and at peace, the typical backdrop for drawing out more of those mindful conversations that Makishima was correct about, that impression non-changing even after all these years. He'd find discussions with Kogami to pass the hours more than just tolerable, they were a pleasure, matching pace and wit a new hobby they'd develop to consume existence with. Next to...sex, maybe, which had been induced as part of the subterfuge while they were partaking in Sibyl's ploys half the decade previous.

"Have you heard of this myth? Van Gogh had once tore through the fields of sunflowers to bring home a bouquet all because they would not stay still."

"He's a madman with radical intensity and his art displays this propensity. A genius of his own age and torment. But then one could not achieve genius without certain madness you believe? Despite that same genius possibly resulting in death."

“It leaves an impression and the impact is great. For one to die for the sake of art, some say.”

Makishima hugged his flowers, a head touched to his companion's shoulder that Kogami all but allowed without following it up with a knife or a bullet. Their _cooperation_ extended beyond certain limits, that was clear, and transcended even the most personal of boundaries. 

"I knew you had extensive knowledge of artistic history but your interests are more inclined to the _deranged_ , Shin."

"Are you talking about _yourself_? At some point, once upon a time, you had seen yourself an artiste that believed death was to be the culmination of your efforts, had you not?"

"Ah, so that means you _are_ inclined to me?"

"Don't flatter yourself, Sho,” Kogami jested.

Sometimes, Shogo could be unconsciously covetous of this, like it were the rarest of objects. A case that was along the mania of what Van Gogh felt when he staked claim upon these blooms, when he said those lines _‘the sunflower is **mine** ’ _. As much as that was the case, Shinya was _his_... But to get to this point...

That horrid degradation Makishima could not have tolerated and would never forget back then, having been forced into being part of the King System in some way, it was worse than a fate of having his brain extracted, but then had afforded them some semblance of chance.

Also a slight amusement for him, as he often thought about _who_ it was that had put in the suggestion to that inhuman hive mind to begin its Project utilizing them both as its physical representatives. In a sense there was rebellion in the motive by which Akane Tsunemori had dragged them into her own game those times, despite perhaps of the fact it had all been done out of a simple act of friendship towards _his_ Shin and that he was the next other suitable person to carry the burden. Or could they rule it out as the case of unrequited, unadmitted love in the part of the female? Now _that_ was more probable.

And Kogami remains clueless to this day, how the Inspector-turned-Overseer of the King System perhaps did the inevitable to save him from execution, with a bonus of denying the System another great resource of a criminally asymptomatic brain that was Makishima’s. Such a _cleverly naïve_ girl. She could actually wrap the System around her finger if she so wished.

"The Irrigation System looks pretty solid from up here. We'll end up with more crops this season," said Kogami as his gaze traced over the lands before him, stopping along the way to gaze over the island’s agricultural coast, teeming with the grain and the fruits of the quarter, the idea for an irrigation line to run across it bringing optimum results that he could smile easy about.

"Who knew you had a knack for engineering?"

"One of your books gave me that idea. It came in at the right time."

Bharat Singh was it on the Fundamentals of Irrigation Engineering? Makishima recalls the volume only recently brought in and added to his collective some months prior. A fair know-how between them both that Kogami must have likewise devoured through that like a starved eremite, not surprisingly enough, the former enforcer in similarity having this voracious appetite to learn, but like him longed more to reverence the appeal of an actual book in his hands. For this reason they had lined their house here with shelves and created for them both a library which the village helped to likewise fill, the boaters bringing in copies whenever they strayed to trade in the nearest country, knowing well the couple liked to read.

Some were Makishima's own handwritten works, his Journals, and Kogami's diaries as well, where they likewise penned their ideas and philosophies from time to time, overlapping each other’s thoughts. Among the things that kept them in this somewhat _exceptional_ relationship. They gave and took from each other just like that.

“I feel sleepy…”

“Please don’t make me carry you home. You're a full grown man,” Kogami Shinya chuckled, but sat still from where they ended under that tree on the hill, as he observed the other man to be drifting off beside him, those flowers still in his arms, exhausted so early in the day.

All this calm was somehow changing them, although behind their existences and the still-transient setup that’s been established for them here, they still have that apprehension, not towards this kind of living, but towards what _fate_ had in store for _them_ in the future.

As it always had been, there seems to be a storm that was brewing along the horizon, ready to devour this island and them with it the next chance it gets.

* * *

The hours in the village pass them by faster. One would scarce notice that time still existed in these parts, although there was nothing else to do but sit idly by once darkness crept into the skies, watching the busier people finish their own chores under the stars, gathering after that to talk about the issues that affect more the side of their own culture, to exchange some ancient stories and songs around the fire, people congregating for the tales of old that the folks used to lull the babes to sleep. Only later dispersing to a peaceful night’s respite before the weather with its fickle rain showers overtake the evening. Still with all this peace. Paradise undisturbed.

A sumptuous meal from the fresh produce of the island was tonight's dinner, a hot stew of vegetables and native chicken with rice perfect to battle the sudden coldness brought about by the shift in the weather, a tropical depression somewhere bringing in a light downpour such as this one traversing the village at the moment.

That made it most suitable to stay indoors, which was normal in _this_ household, the day-to-day affairs culminated by the usual things _couples_ were supposed to do. In their case, it centred upon common interests, spending long moments on talks regarding many subjects as nothing else was to be had to occupy these lazy moments.

It at times consumed their hours, the two having the habit of staying up late when they were at home. Unimaginable it may have been years before, but the Shinya Kogami and Shogo Makishima of the present share in _many_ things, limited not only to their similar pastime pursuits. They also had not spoken or mentioned Sibyl in any discussions. The past as it was. They'd agreed to leave it in the dust...

_'Looks like this will only get worse,’_ the former enforcer thought of the weather, having not left the table just yet after supper, quietly listening to the light pitter-patter of this steadily building downpour against the thatched roofing of their village dwelling, Shogo tending to his books somewhere in the living area, rearranging them carefully while leaving a few stacked, having not found a space for them among his rows of shelves. Admittedly, he was mildly irritated.

"I may need a new side built,” he was referring to the shelving. “...else, where am I to put all _these_?"

He gestured at the uncatalogued volumes with a less than satisfied expression, but having taken the title he wanted to finish reading reverently in arm, had already left things be where they may for now, finding the couch. Perhaps he will work on it tomorrow? Or ask his _partner_ to do the task for him? He just remembered that he had some teaching to do in the morning.

"That's because you have been acquiring way too many. Our house literally looks like a library."

"As if you are not guilty yourself, asking the boatmen to bring you your preferred authors' works. Half of this pile is _yours_ technically, so pinning the blame on me is entirely preposterous."

"Is man not a learning beast?” Shinya finally pushed his chair back and up he stood with a smile, tidying the table and taking the dishes to the kitchen counter, continuing the conversation with the other even as Shougo had already shifted his attention to the book he has in hand. “We aim to continuously evolve by accumulating intellect, always insatiable, _needy_ in that respect..."

"Is that your best excuse for the situation? The natural desire of all _good_ men to obtain knowledge?" Makishima was flipping each page carefully, finding the bookmark he’d left tucked between the sections after reading a few chapters that morning. He didn’t have the habit of creasing pages in dog ears to indicate his progress. He found that disrespectful somewhat. “Well I believe men of knowledge live by _acting_ not thinking,” he pinned Shinya with his knowing gaze before returning to what he was doing with a smile. “Thus tomorrow you’ll begin building me a new bookshelf so _our pile_ will have its place.” 

Kogami paused part of the way as he was washing the plates gathered in the sink, only to break into a bemused laugh that echoed throughout the house, overtaking the sound of the rain for the briefest of moments. “My, such shameless _tactics_ ,” he quipped normally.

To which Shogo replied without looking up, “Next to being right, be glad I tend to leave you an escape that you may gracefully swing over to my side without suffering an embarrassing loss of face.”

“Oh is that so?”

Makishima this time chuckled. "Yes."

Shinya spent the next few minutes quietly tidying things in their kitchen, finishing up his end of the chores and wiping his hands dry with a towel finally. That was before coming over to the living room, without much the preamble reaching in to take the book that Shogo had been busy with, folding it aside, pressing a knee between the other's legs as he leaned in, putting the volume down.

A hand grasped at the back of the seat allowed him to pull closer to his _partner_. At this proximity, they could both see each other’s eyes, stay delving into them, the desire swimming discreetly on the surface of the former enforcer’s. Was it that time of the day again?

"Shin, I'm not done with that yet. If you want to read it, you have to wait for your turn," Shogo was rather breathless saying that, pressed to the furniture suddenly and trapped with nowhere to go.

He didn’t have any troubles with that however. Being this close to his _previous_ nemesis afforded him a form of thrill. Kogami’s presence was inexplicably exhilarating. Back then, the very mention of his name got him excited.

"By now you should have figured that _reading_ is not the only thing I want to do at this moment," the former enforcer was so bold, drawing the other man in by his chin, tilting his head up to meet him, to press a light kiss upon those lips before deciding he was hungrier than he deemed himself to be, returning for seconds and this time pressing it deeper.

His tongue had followed in to explore. No further words as these were effectively stolen from between them by that.

Reading could actually wait another time, they both decided.

* * *

The rain had thickened as the night progressed, not a trace of stars, nor the clear of skies that was usually and endlessly common a sight on the island. But all the noise coming from outside was somewhat drowned, when Kogami pressed Shogo’s body close upon the boards of the bath, steam rising around them as they part only briefly from their kisses, resuming the careless caresses with a renewed vigor, lips again melting after only a few seconds.

From upon the bamboo floor of the living area, they had taken their _lovemaking_ to the shower, the _White King_ clinging to Kogami like his life depended on it, fingers digging nails down that back and scratching, certain to leave marks, no doubts there, as even under the trickling of the waters, Shinya could feel the trickling of his own blood. He’s going to be nursing some serious wounds the morrow. But that seemed insignificant by comparison to the pleasure that he was getting, aiming to reciprocate in kind, his lover’s sounds and movements merging with his own.

He smirked, biting down upon Makishima’s damp shoulder and earning for himself a most delicious cry, panting into Shogo's ear, “For someone who has been doing this with me for the last six years, your reactions can still be tad virginal. What did they actually say? _‘Know when to indulge and when to deny the hunger’_ ?

"You **can’t** seem to _deny_ me.”

Oh how true. Of all the things Sibyl had programmed into them in the past playing the System’s _Kings_ , _lust_ and the basic need for sex was among those they could not shrug off. Even if they'd discovered the clear deception. There was always that time in any given day when consent lapsed and mingled, given without words but supported by simple understanding, that when desire calls and they needed to listen to its carnality, all they needed was to take what they wanted of the other. There would be no need to explain.

Shinya made an effort to catch his lover's wrist in one hand, bringing that forearm to his lips and kissing the tribal tattoo there, licking the mark that clearly matched that of his own, only this was an invert, his name, as clearly as Shogo's was on his own skin, immortalized in the sacred alphabet between much eloquent symbolism. 

It had a marriage significance equivalent to wedding rings. Since they'd lost their bands somewhere along the way after discovering Sibyl's tracers there, this distinct of village traditions took their place. They were wed and, as the rituals that were held on a more spiritual level maintain, are of _one soul_. When their bodies met like this, it felt that way.

Kogami spread his lover's legs, carefully hiking a knee over his hip, pulling Makishima impossibly closer and pressing his manhood against the ring of that ass, the head sliding in purposely to declare intentions, in turn squishing some of his earlier ejaculate out. This would be the third time that he’s owned this asymptomatic being who all but moaned out to helplessly grasp at Shinya’s wet locks.

“How can I exactly do so as _effectively_ when you have me pinned to the wall and are seducing me with _your words_?” the other breathed out, with a cold shiver caused both by the water and the situation he was in.

Both of them had the gift of gab, this was undeniable, their eloquence in persuasive speaking more than enough during one too many a time to easily overcome certain matters. But when it came to said matters that pertained to bedding and bodily _need_ , Shogo was easily overcome by Shinya in all respects, the former admitting to this fatal attraction, to his defeat. For when Kogami speaks, Makishima got his relish out of listening.

The _Black King_ chuckled, “Most unfortunate. For _you_ that is. For my cheap tricks to work on one that could be _savior_ himself.”

He once more descended to claim those lips, trailing the touch down that exposed neck, re-positioning himself over his lover before thrusting hard into his body, ramming his cock in one go and to the hilt. He paused to give the one beneath him time to adjust, Shogo’s breath apparently caught that he stuttered in his reply, “I-I’m sure... you are _anguished_... on my behalf.”

More throaty moans, heat lashing up into his form, a shudder racing down his spine as he felt that hardness fill him once more, and completely. The expressions on his face shifting as Shinya began to move, hips pistoning generously, thrusting in, the motion fluid like the waters drenching them continuously from the shower, as the rain outside was doing to the world...

* * *

A few hours after midnight and the rain seemed to have let up, the former enforcer in their shared bed rolling to lay on his back, facing the ceiling with the lazy fan there spinning not by its own accord but by the slight wind coming in through the window, the curtain of the house dancing to the cool breeze. He was listening to nature and to Shogo who had picked up yet another book from the nearest shelf, flopped on his stomach reading right beside. Even here, these novels and treatises overrun them. The old Shinya would have reached for a cigarette, but he had kicked the habit long ago, thus he was more or less just content with lying on his arms and observing the world around him.

“ _‘I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals.Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!”_ ’”

“Why do you reach for the  _Bible_ as an after-sex read? You really have not the bone of a romantic in your body,” Shinya was easily bored and rolled over once more, hiking himself on top of his lover to press a kiss on the nearest shoulder he can find, nibbling there, hands sliding down that muscled form, Shogo’s milky skin a level in contrast to his own pale even in this homely darkness.

_“So beautiful…”_ he remarked.

Makishima laughed lightly at that, “Why do you say what you are already aware of? Do you take me as a fan of the _Memoirs of Fanny Hill_ who finds substance in the written sexual experiences of others when I have firsthand _encounters_ of them myself in **your** bed _every night_?

“Or would you prefer me to quote you poetry after we climax?” he meant those words, casting his feline eyes over that shoulder, trying to look at the other though he was better off feeling those lips as they trailed down his spine now, having goosebumps on account of Shinya’s words as they ghosted with his warm breath upon his flesh, “Geez. Philosophize everything within that topic, really.”

There was no helping it. Shogo carefully flipped himself over so he may lay a hand on his husband’s cheek when the latter looked up at him, whispering something to Shinya that the other likewise listened to, “ _‘Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part; Nay, I have done, you get no more of me.’_ ” He chuckled.

The _Black King_ knew just what to say: “ _‘If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.’_ ”

“Well then, who seems to like their poetry here, hm?”

“You started it,” the other glided upwards over him, loving the delightful exhale that barest of movements resulted into, beneath the sheets, their bodies all but naked and able to sense every subtle change. Like their heartbeats, breathing, shudders and of course the arousal. They still liked talking however. It was like some manner of fuel to their respective _appetites_. “But really, tell me why. I’m pretty certain it isn’t for the spiritual context that you read the biblical.”

Shogo laughed, closing his King James version and easing it aside before it ends up caught in this battlefield of limbs. Shinya was on the prowl once more like the hound he once was. He knew where _this_ was headed. “You imply I believe in no God?” he was stroking fingers through Shinya’s tousled black hair.

“Do you believe in God to begin with? When you are not wanting to play one on your own?”

Now there was a thought to ponder upon, but Makishima had his answers. “...I believe in an _Existence_ that causes things to _happen_ , maybe that is my more accurate perception of it. But more than that, I merely think it amusing that such a concept would be limited by man’s temporal perception which labels whichever it is as _deity_ and which is not.

“The definition of ‘ _god_ ’ more or less feels like an attempt at understanding that which could not be understood in the first place. And this,” he gestured at the Bible that was now on the bed stand. “... _the Greatest Story Ever Told_ , is a fabrication that aims to stake claim that the Divine had touched lives when, for all we know, the Heavens revolve without even caring for _mortal beings_  since we only came to be in the first place by some callous accident or chance.

"By this then, should it be not accurate to state that there must be no entity given reign to control another? Because such an entity does not control itself to begin with?" he finished, referring to Sibyl as he marched his points along its edges but not directly stating the facts.

They never pass talk of _that_ System, its flaws and incapacities, or the people that had been involved and possibly still are involved, in this house.

Shinya laced their fingers in an affectionate gesture, casting gray eyes down as he matched their marriage tattoos side by side, forming that singular pattern. “Do you live to question everything?” 

Shogo smirked. Where was the _Black King’_ s other hand roaming? It was stirring up some truly delicious sensation that he arched into suddenly, responding before he got lost in the moment, “No.

“But I love the questions without answers, not seeking the latter myself. Like our books of foreign language here, their lack of meaning is what I live for somehow, in anticipation that someday I can draw close to their very definition,” he murmured.

Shinya had by now ran his palm over his lover’s hardness, the same pushing those familiar thighs apart, seeking the give of Makishima’s anus that still leaked his cum. He rested between those legs comfortably, while above he was trailing kisses everywhere in supplication, lingering upon a nipple to tug at it with his teeth. Shogo stuttered a gasp, head thrown back.

“ _Rilke_?” Kogami whispered the reference before pressing his forehead to Shogo’s own, their eyes meeting once more, lips a few centimetres away, breathing hitched and mingling.

“You know me so well,” the _White King_ smiled up at him, before he himself was not able to contain it any longer, pulling his lover down to meld their passions into another round of numbing ecstasy.


	2. Those Words Unsaid Between

It was again the morrow without a doubt, indicated by the sun streaming through the curtains as all the windows of their room were drawn aside and open, Shinya finding himself alone in bed when he came to, but finding the presence of a note coming from Makishima clipped under a paperback copy of the _Little Prince_ at bedside - an indication as to where the other might be found today in case he decided to search for him.

It was that time of the week again was it?

Shogo was going to be teaching some of the children in the village, a task of which Kogami thought noble yet was at times in doubt about. Given the other’s specialty of shaping and reshaping mindsets, he better not be breeding the next set of Marxists in there, or, in the very least, occultists, politicians or those one-track-minded idealists that would soil the face of this paradise’s perfection. That would be a shame, to dampen such innocent minds with the cruelties common outside of their home, needing not bring into mind the horrors Shogo’s ploys had once wrought society despite those being done via other people’s hands. He hoped at least that Makishima was sincere in his goals there. They after all had lived here long enough that seeking the ruin of this peace should not at all cross their minds. This was not Japan.

“I overdid it again last night. My whole body aches... _gods_...”

Crumpling the note and letting it slip from his hand to fall where it would on the floor, the former enforcer got up and just sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, allowing the salty breeze to caress his naked skin as he turned his sights beyond the dance of those curtains, the rain previously helping to lend further cool to their home and the entire island itself.

Then up he stood with a much-needed stretch, clearing his muscles of its screaming lethargy and ignoring everything else that came with it. He needed to get some exercise in, perhaps doing some push-ups before starting the day, or he could just jump straight into his own set of chores since they in themselves ended up equally strenuous.

Which reminded him.

There was a sting down his back that caught the salt of the air that he knew he’d been scratched up by his partner real good last night. Somehow that made him consider staying in a bit longer, yet just as quickly decided against, knowing that he could not afford to miss today’s activities.

He was being asked to watch a _Sepak_ match between clans, by personal invitation of the village chieftain himself which, given some inalienable circumstances, he couldn’t refuse. It was being arranged in their honour. Makishima said he’d join him there later after school, right about the exact time for lunch.

On that note, Shinya wondered how on earth Shogo was able to get up even, when he specifically recalls he’d fucked him so many times that surely he’d be entirely sore. But then again given the compulsion of that person to finishing whatever task he assigned himself to, it was no doubt he had also wretched himself from sleep to make his schedule. Damn, he did not wake Shinya up however.

A quick shower and a change of clothes, the cool not leaving him despite the sun already up and about, setting the house alight and warm all around as he walked off to the kitchen to fix himself up something to eat. The _Black King_ was mildly surprised to find breakfast already prepared, a light toss of fresh salad with hard-boiled eggs, soup on the stove and the island staple of rice left still warm for him. Which made Shinya reconsider. Perhaps it hasn’t been that long since Shogo had left, thankfully able to manage cooking in his wake and, _what’s this_ , Shinya found a bracelet of beads on the table. A present, it seemed like, as he read another note entailed to that:

_‘ ...we not only survive to live another day, but we thrive to celebrate another day.’_

Craig D. Lounsbrough, in Makishima’s own handwriting, the former hound chuckling to himself.  _‘_ _That guy, really…’_ Shinya thought but then likewise recalled something very important.

Tomorrow was actually _their_ anniversary. Not that he’d forgotten when the evidence of it was tattooed on his arm. He’d have to do something _memorable_ as well, he decided, slipping that string around his wrist where it looked quite at home with some of the other bead work there. All from Shogo, he brought into mind, around five to count now, for each year they had been together; there would have been a lot more if he would only consider those years spent chasing after Makishima's ghost. But then those things no longer mattered as much. Not here on this island. Not here in their house.

This domicile they kept was filled with many things they worked with together, the results of small hobbies and some recreational pastime, of invention and creativity, of rediscovering their very talents, in a sense discovering each other on an even deeper level. For example, Shinya learnt Shogo was a most proficient craftsman and artisan, while he on the other end showed him how adept he was in carpentry and repairs, Shinya taking it upon himself to make the necessary fixes around their home, helping in the establishment of others out of it in the same way. They were both rather good with their hands and, due that, they melded best together in accomplishing many sorts of projects. Sex was never really the only thing they did great as a team. Oftentimes, here on the island, it was not at all even a requisite to make their domestic plight work.

He poured himself a cup of coffee and walked out onto the balcony, thinking that a day could never get any better than this, from that lovely vantage seeing how alive the entire village was before him, the surroundings lush from the kiss of the rain past, greener than he had seen it yesterday. Living like this here, it was one of his _joys_. A good book in hand, a warm meal and, yes, even the days with Shogo Makishima and those eternal conversations they always find themselves having. He was all for that, can actually see himself retiring into this kind of life in an older age if allowed to.

That would just be _glorious_ , he admitted, to be left in relative solitude until he died in the same peace. If only they could stay like this.

“ _I_ _tadakimasu_ ,” Shinya prayed out of habit to a deity he does not know if he’d believe himself or not. Perhaps his view as well had now become same to that of Makishima’s on the subject, recalling their discussion hours earlier in the comforts of their bed. He too refused to put a face on something he believed to not have one in the beginning, more a universal existence, a _Singularity_ that ruled and assigned or simply stepped back to let the cosmos evolve on its own.

That didn’t seem such a bad thing, he finally decided. Whatever It was, It had brought them here, yes? “Thanks...Sho.”

* * *

Shinya had laced up his work boots and gone out to the fields like any decent _husband_ would, finishing up with tending the gardens, mending the fences and pruning the trees to make certain of their fruits. Then he went to take care of the animals in their respective pens, first distributing the feed then filling the troughs with water, getting some sort of satisfaction in these tasks no matter how arduous and no matter the amount of work he needed to put into them.

In a sense, when they started their little farm here, him and his partner were only bent on rediscovering the basics of horticulture and husbandry, of agriculture, but it had in turn led to the benefit of the whole village when they agreed to expand the practices they put here onto the larger scale of the island fields, seas and forests, adapting rather graciously due that, not to mention, allowing them to be busy with something else besides their certain impulses.

It gave them something purposeful with which to occupy their lives here when there was no longer the drugs imposed on them by Sibyl as its _Kings_ , and when they expected no form of contention to exist between them. Actually, it became a challenge to fight each other or even argue nowadays, not when they had already gone this far especially, the _hate_ and other negativity marginally diminished. More so since they had ended up _here_ when, everywhere else they looked in the world, societies were falling apart. The island was close to _Marcus Tullius Cicero_ ’s ideal of _peace in tranquil liberty_ , where people had their right unimpaired and lived by the results of their own choosing...

Before long, all the chores were done, and Shinya was now heading out to find the necessary materials to build that shelf Makishima wanted, not really obliged to but feeling it a responsibility of his to give those books a place in their home. After all, when he did check that morning, he actually found out that he’d about more than half of that pile under his name.

Guilty as charged.

Shogo had seemed more than lenient with him once again.

* * *

“Morning Kiko.”

“Good morning,  _Lord_ Kogami. It’s a pleasant surprise to see you.”

The other man waved towards the former enforcer, seeing him arrive from beyond the hill, using that title, _Lord_ , which actually was more an honorary label than anything else in the case of the two foreigners that had come to live on their island.

Because they had contributed much to the village in just the span of a few years since they’d arrived, the Council of Elders deemed it fitting to bless them with this esteem, Shinya and Shogo both becoming adopted members of the ruling class though their involvements were much less indirect and minimal. They preferred sticking to their peace and quiet, living a simple life together, yet had not stood idly by and lent a hand when their knowledge was necessary, particularly when the village needed improvements in their state of life here. It had become a drastic turn of events which, in turn, brought people to respect the arrangements the two agreed for themselves despite the situation. It was taboo in the first place, even while they were playing _Kings_ back in Japan. Thankfully, a same-sex couple amidst this place was viewed by the villagers without bias. Largely due to the fact that they both had much to offer. That **or** they just looked too damn good either individually or together, Shogo had one time jested.

“What can I do for you today?”

“I need some planks,” Shinya lifted a hand to scratch at his head, figuring if being too straightforward while being in the other’s presence was rude, though Kiko didn’t appear to notice. “Planks for some home improvement?” he merely asked back, shuffling through his inventory list with a stroke of his slight beard. He was technically Shinya’s junior by about six years, yet he looked more mature than the former enforcer. The other man was actually already a father of three.

“You can say that,” Shinya Kogami shrugged finally, sighing before telling the other his reasons for the request. “So you see we need to build another shelf for our books at home. We always seem to easily run out of space.”

Shinya and his _male_ wife were the epitome of the aphorism ‘ _as good as it was to inherit a library, it was even better to collect one_.’ The people who were well-acquainted with the two knew how the couple had a tendency to accumulate titles of all shapes and sizes, the books in their possession as important treasures to them as their very lives, the numbers of which increase exponentially every time at every opportunity. Shogo, viewed by everyone as the nurturing teacher, even lends his copies to those wanting to read them too. They just needed to exercise great care in handling with the promise to return them promptly for others to likewise enjoy. Kiko was one of their frequent borrowers.

“That many huh? Didn’t you just build one last time? Seems _Lord_ Makishima is hoarding more and more as of late. It hadn’t even been three months.”

“It’s actually my fault this time.”

“Beg pardon?”

“I was the one over-collecting…”

Kiko gave him that raise of the brow, before breaking into a laugh and in the same way infecting Shinya with that said laughter. The villager reached out to pat him on the shoulder as he pointed the troubles of being bibliophiles as him and his better half were. Like all collectors with that much love for their chosen obsessions, any number of the object seems inadequate. They always needed more, searched for more, wanted all of it if not most of it that they could get their hands on.

This wasn’t a disadvantage however, considering the two have the magnanimity to share anyway. Everyone got something from their efforts. Thanks to them, the island would perhaps have its own library someday. Actually, they already had one...it just needed to refine its own version of the Dewey Decimal System that only the couple seemed to comprehend. Even written in the island language, it was too complex to sift through.

“Don’t tell him that,” Shinya was making a shushing gesture, having uttered a joke of his male wife’s compulsions to revise everything it seems.

The other man gave him a wink, “Wouldn’t think of it _Lord_ Kogami. This secret stays between us.” And they were both laughing again.

One may consider Kiko to be Shinya’s closest friend here on the island, the nephew of the village chieftain whom having been blessed with daughters declared the former to be his next successor instead. He was the man who found him and Shogo when they washed up on the shores of the island, and since his family owned the largest resource store around, was also the one who helped them settle in, aiding in the building of the house and, among other things, the constructions that littered the village to date. Whenever the couple or basically anyone else needed something, they could approach Kiko any time, the latter making himself available even at odd hours for his fellow islanders. No wonder he was so popular and had a following all his own.

“I can supply you a few when we get the trees cut down. We’re trading them with the nearest island for seeds and seedlings. If you can wait at least a couple days.”

“That would be fine. What would you want for them however?”

Kiko refused Shinya’s attempt to barter for the materials, shaking his head at that with a smile, “No need for anything, I told you that before.

"Just build _Lord_ Makishima his shelf, and make it sturdy, that’s all.”

It was worth to note that unlike most parts of the world, commercialism hadn’t at all infected this place enough that the form of _buying and selling_ still used here was one that had been the most acceptable since the ancient times before currencies were ever invented.

The island store, similar to the few others like it scattered across the territory, utilized none other but a certain form of the Barter System, people exchanging their services and goods in return for other services and goods found here. If you had plenty of something, you can go on ahead and trade it for other necessities.

But of course thriving on this system alone was not enough. The village itself was not exclusive to its own though it had this simplistic appeal akin to that respect. It likewise traded with other outsources, such as the nearest town in a country by sea, maintaining a long tie to that place where the Council earned from their sale of produce, crops, fish and other materials its own share of money ready on hand, to be used by the people of the island generally.

A simple method of banking it for when certain needs arise, but never wasting it on things like excessive technology or leisurely acquisitions. Most here never even knew what the outside world was and never really wanted to know much of it. Bless these people's ignorance of it; they will never get corrupted. They only seemed to need their uncomplicated self-sustainability and a contentment which had further improved thanks to Makishima and Kogami. 

Speaking of which, the couple's contributions to this society was the reason why these last years they had actually been handed many a favour from this store and the village, often getting things free of charge, that house they kept furnished by presents and offerings of goodwill clearly because they had provided better advice than any to correct the island when it was at its lowest after that natural disaster that likewise brought them both onto these lands.

The people had never stopped paying them for what they had set up to help everyone - the solar panels and windmills for electricity, Shinya’s Irrigation System to water the crops, organic agricultural practices to rid of pests and increase the yield, even some manner of medical knowledge. Makishima even going as far as teaching the kids to minimize illiteracy; he also taught the elders who reciprocated in kind by teaching them their customs and ways, his male wife now able to read and speak the native tongue with relative expertise. Shinya was catching up just fine to him in that department.

The two had somewhat received such notability as great men, the whole island staying indebted to them to this very day, although Kogami was loathe to take advantage of this. He was satisfied with what they already have.

“Are you sure? It would make me feel bad just taking the materials without doing anything in return,” he’d always maintained and everyone thought him to be just be very humble. What they were still doing to better the island was enough.

"Well then, in that case, maybe you can perhaps join us on the next hunt? It's almost that time of the year again," Kiko knew a thing or two about pride however, and to save his good friend’s face, offered this suggestion.

"Maybe I will...I'll ask Sho likewise."

" _Lord_ Makishima? Oh yeah! Last time, he seemed to have enjoyed it very much."

Shogo in a hunt...was a natural predator, but mostly everyone missed deducing the hunger that he conceals behind his amber eyes, that murderous glint that deceived even the Sibyl System, _however_ was something clear as crystal to Shinya. He knew the dangers of keeping this man around, yet despite that somehow accepts it for what it is.

Because in truth they were the same, although things of this sort hold a different meaning to someone like Kogami.

Among the myriad of tasks all villagers shared efforts in, hunting and trapping was by far in his list of favourites, perhaps in part because of his former work as an enforcer and then as the _Black King_. This hype. The adrenaline of taking it through the dark forests with only the most meager of tools, tracking the beast of prey and lying in wait. It brings back memories of when he was the hound in a land of streets and concrete, of coefficients in dictatorship. Shinya frowned. These trees feel better than the cities he's been in. Running under these ancient canopies with their outstretched branches in search of your next meal. By far that resulted in a more positive experience he’d acquiesce to anytime. And strangely enough, so does he see Shogo Makishima in the act.

“Yeah, I guess he had...I’ll convince him to join in too.”

* * *

It was off to the _Sepak_ match after that trip to Kiko’s, but not before he made a stop over the school house where Shogo was teaching, reaching it only a few minutes after passing by the shorter yet more secluded way with its winding road, past the fields and woodland patches that marked the boundaries of the village itself, as beyond that were more of these rolling hills, the rivers and estuaries then the open sea. How lovely a world incorrupt. Its nature was pristine and untamed, wild and becoming. He usually stopped to stretch here like these ancient trees, the Banyan and Acacia in their old age, feeling the wind against his form like a baptism as the grass and shrubs swayed around him.

Shogo’s new shelf needed to wait. But then that would be just fine. He’ll have it ready as a late anniversary gift, then fill it up with more of the things they loved, smirking with a shake of his head at the fact that **that** just frankly sounded more the part of the husband. Well wasn’t it true in a sense? He had been fulfilling _this role_ in more ways than one could count all this time...

Shinya was in no way a romantic himself. He was more of a skeptic, a deducer, a person who just wouldn’t believe something is as it first seems given the nature of the profession he had once actually been part of. Great detectives always stuck to their facts, and with a mind that refuses to be illogical in any sense, he only accepted things with enough proof. But it had been different with Shogo. He had followed the path with him _blindly_. Comparable to faith, their decisions since had been based on ' _to believe is to see_ '. A strange recognition that was not at all shocking after going through what they both had gone through.

When Shinya’d arrived, it was maybe the third or fourth hour of class, Makishima visible through the open side of his Japanese-style school building and in the middle of lecture, his open book in hand, the students all concentrated, his commanding presence no doubt producing this effect.

This was yet another one of their achievements as a couple, the strengthening of education as a base need on the island, his partner the first to push for the right that he himself eventually had supported. In fact, the village had already sent their first students to the nearest town to take on further studies. If not for Makishima's efforts, then that would not have even been thought about by the Elders.

_‘That’s_ **_my_ ** _Shogo for you…’_

_My_... _Mine_... Shinya Kogami could not recall when he had started to use those words, but for all it’s worth, he’d always been possessive of Makishima. He had caroused in the fact that he could possess the other so completely. Of how he, the once-hound that literally dogged after the other’s trail as an enforcer then standing to be the Asymptomatic’s partner as a fellow _King_ , could very well be the only being on earth capable of leashing such a remarkable person to himself. Though he couldn’t say the same about Shogo. For the latter’s feelings, despite having the propensity to be lost in each other’s arms in the heat of their passions on many an occasion, were still as lost to him as the unknown.

Shinya Kogami stared at _him_ for a while.

The being that was Shogo Makishima sometimes seemed like an apparition of the immaculate, the former enforcer thinking on that old sentiment he had barely recalled previous but could now remember with certain clarity. A fitting homage to what he was feeling, indulging in the simple habit of observing the other there.

Their ships had collided, as such was their fate, but when destruction wrought their course and everything was torn to shreds, they swam to shore with each other. He wondered if they will likewise keep sailing with each other.

“ ‘ _If you age with somebody, you go through so many roles - you're lovers, friends, enemies, colleagues, strangers; you're brother and sister._

“ _‘That's what intimacy is, if you're with your soulmate.’_ ”

If maybe they had only met in a different way or began this journey in a different light, maybe they’d have an altogether variated relationship. But would he have wanted it? Would Shogo have? Did he need to look farther or was the answer right before his eyes?

* * *

The evening air was filled with the sounds of the cicadas and other small critters of the night, the light breeze of the tropics permeating the house as the two occupied themselves with what business they had in mind with each other, having had a full meal and tea and then indulging in some other liberties, Shinya inexplicably clingy tonight, Shogo noticed, affording him many kisses since coming home earlier. Perhaps this could be attributed to their upcoming anniversary? It was the eve of it at the moment. Such wanton display of behaviour was not common at all, well except for when the date comes to dawn as the _White King_ took account of every year.

Yet this time, there was a difference. This time, there was a subtle thought Shinya appears to be keeping to himself and had not voiced. It was evident in the ambiance of the house, the way it hung in the atmosphere. It was not what was always said but what was unsaid between them all this time...

Kogami lay prostrate on the carpet of the floor in the attitude of relaxation, eyes visibly shut as he laid his head facing one side on a pillow, naked from the waist up with Makishima straddled on his back and giving him a good rub down, palm pressed to hand as the latter eased up and down Shinya’s spine, putting some firm pressure, then only to part at the broadness of his shoulders to squeeze out the tension there, channeling the heaviness away.

The receiver of his attentions groaned out how good that actually felt, the scented oil made from the sunflowers of the village, one of their best commodities, doing its mild wonder, Shogo in the same way finding it pleasurable to hear the sounds his partner was making, smiling as he continued his ministrations upon that body, at times grinding himself down in suggestion, but playing on that rather lightly for now, versing out some lines of Gottfried August Bürger’s _Lenore_ as a pretext.

He was enamoured with the exchange of the dead groom and his bewitched bride as they rode through the eerie night, to their marriage bed which was the grave. Much like them both, was what Makishima so often implied, to have been taken from life to death then life again, in some endless way, unable to escape the currents. Will they once more cycle through those pains? That was what he at times pondered upon.

“You’re rather stiff all over. Who told you to play a game of _Sepak_ with the young people of the village anyhow?” Makishima had asked earlier.

“It was by my own decision. It seemed rather fun to do at that time, even on such short notice,” Kogami answered.

“I’m sorry I hadn’t gone to see it. One of my students got sick and needed to be accompanied home.”

“Pay any more attention to your _children_ there and I might think you’re _cheating_ on me.”

“What?” Makishima did a second take but then gently chuckled, easing his slick palms in a series of sideway glides over that back, garnering yet another bevy of low yet luscious moans from his lover. “You sound like you’re _jealous_ , Shin.”

_Was he?_

Kogami considered those words, this time opening his eyes slowly and from the corners of them stared at his partner before wandering off to gaze at something else, such as his fingers where his hand had ended up slack before his head, the window far off, the stars. There was no rain tonight so the skies were wrapped in such clarity. Though somehow he frowned at it, something that Shogo had caught, the bare curve of those lips by the corners as the expression formed all but too fleetingly. It was gone in a passing minute, the former enforcer burying his face into the pillow in his arms with a groan that suspiciously sounded of frustration.

“Shin?”

That before the unexpected when the other simply pushed Shogo off and threw him down, but quick to catch the back of his head on the same pillow where he’d earlier laid. This time, Kogami was the one who pinned him to the floor with his weight, crotch to crotch, legs loosely entangled, the _Black King'_ s gray eyes delving straight into the amber of Makishima’s own as the latter lay there sprawled, admittedly caught off-guard by that motion yet fighting not where he ended. He was staring up at a perfectly chiseled statue. Shinya had all the qualities befitting a marble work-of-art. It was very seductive.

“We have never shared _those words_ ,” the former enforcer began, eyes now drifting lower to the buttons of Shogo’s shirt, undoing them with his sight even before his lazy fingers had reached to unfasten each one, taking notice of how his male wife’s breathing had suddenly altered, as if anticipating the movement. “If I said _them_ , that _I loved you_ , would you believe me?”

It was his hands’ turn to explore the skin he had just uncovered, soothing the palms there over such flesh that was already well-trained to perceive his desires alone, heating up as he pushed the shirt open further, exposing what he sought to find. When his fingertips nudged at both of the _White King_ ’s nipples, even with just the slight press, Shogo’s reaction became quite raw and patent, breath hiking as he tossed his head aside, amber eyes vanishing behind closed lids. His fingers tensed where they were on the pillow and the carpet as another more prominent response was building up between his still-encased loins.

Shinya took his time and enjoyed the moment, giving his partner enough space to adjust, wondering in the same way if he had heard his question because he looked to have just lost his capability to, a light moan escaping those lips.

The answer came soon enough however. “What is there _not_ to believe?” when Makishima opened his eyes once more, there was a glint of heady lust swimming in them, fixing into Kogami’s gray orbs as he turned up to look at him directly, his entire posture utterly vulnerable and pliant, exposed to anything that he might receive and is willing to reciprocate to. “Had we not gone through hell and back and been through almost every damnation that such a question should already have its resolution and **clearly** , my _dearest_ Shinya Kogami?”

The former hound shook his head, cutting their connection briefly, only to return to it full force, concentrating on that face as his fingers coiled the strands of Shogo’s silvery hair around themselves. How could they have stayed this soft? “But I need you to _say it_. I need you to confirm.”

“Ever the thorough detective…” Makishima smiled. “Not content with having the facts, there must be something needing to be admitted else there's further admonition, is there not?”

“Are you mocking me?”

Somewhere, sometime, Shinya had caught a glimpse of their marriage tattoos. They'd look darker in his mind than anything, those symbols fading to wisps, perhaps a trick of the light, but that did not mean their significance had in any way lessened in value. Having this talk. It somehow registered its importance even more.

“I’d never…” the Asymptomatic reached his hand up this time, gliding tips to touch his lover’s jaw, cheek, threading through his own darker and contradicting hair as he pulled him close, pressing a kiss to the _Black King_ ’s ear, his nipples stroking against the latter’s chest attentively, that little intimacy leaving a glorious sensation running down Kogami’s spine. 

More or less an indication to proceed. He can address it any way he wanted, especially now that Shogo had spread his legs and was arching up his own hardness to meet the bulge that was in the same way evident in the body that had him trapped. He was not about to wish to be set free any time soon.

“Listen Shinya…” Makishima whispered, moaning out shamelessly when his lover answered his summons by pressing their hips together, fisting through that hair when Kogami all but kissed him down the side of his face, tracing his jaw and was now devouring a path down his neck. Before he forgot himself, he had to say it.

“ _‘Before, I wanted to say: "I found love!" But now, I want to say: "I found a person. And he belongs to me and I belong to him._ ’”

A precursor to the words that had not passed between them since all of this had began, the lines bearing such weight that only the two of them understood. Something which Makishima indulged in after much consideration and maybe a slight hesitation, whispering the same words his significant other longed to hear and, in the deepest recesses of his inner being, also wanted to hear himself.


	3. The King of Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to shift to a different way of presenting the last chapter. It was an experiment I had wanted to try. Hope it fits though since my Betas have not really seen it yet.

> // Igniting the fire of love,  
> Was never taught.  
> We are all just bound by the sky,  
> Tryin' to find infinities that might bless the soul.  
> Playing a song from the heart,  
> Was never taught,  
> We are just showing the world the grateful life we live.  
> // Aayushi, “Human Nature”, 2018

Nature is not by itself _sacred_. Rather, what gives sanctity to Nature, and other things in general seen of the similar context, was the belief showered upon it by the populace who had need of it. In other words, what blesses the _blessed_ were the persons whose faith, as the Holy Word puts emphasis upon, that though smaller than a mustard seed would be able to move its own fair share of mountains...

Today was a day of leisure, the anniversary of their coming to be a couple, not under the rites done here on the island, rather, both of them were counting the years they'd spent as husband _and_ husband in Sibyl's Japan, in essence likewise a celebration of the escape they'd managed _that day_ , already half a decade since. Whose memories however were still fresh to recollection despite it being that long ago. For some deeper rationale, a grudge or similar, both Kogami and Makishima could not move past from it, and utterly couldn't forget even if they want or tried to.

Now just like any sensible pair, they'd already come to an agreement that they would take this trip towards the far off side of the island, to a location known to their local neighbours as the Sacred Hills, into which's forests, as the customs bestowed upon them by the village dictated, any couple could obtain the higher blessings of their deities, a prayer to the shrine there recommended to ensure a fruitful and long life together, although Makishima saw there be not a relation to their circumstances, really. As these parts had only become this by the belief of the men and women that had deemed it worthy of some manner of consecration. Consideration which had made it sacrosanct. 'That sense of sacredness, that thinking in generations, must begin with reverence for this earth,' as Paul Tsongas once stated. It had only become venerated because someone once decreed that it should be, not because there were higher powers residing in its territories. Beliefs that Makishima amused himself with but cared the lesser of. He wouldn't have gone, in truth, yet Kogami seemed pleased to do it and that may be enough of a reason to tarry along.

"The view is spectacular. It's as if the earth itself moves by its own intensity and indeed it does without humanity's petty intercessions.

"I feel insignificant within this vastness," said Shogo to his husband, slowing his steps for a better survey of the area.

Before them, the sun roared, the tropical lush seemed only flushed with vitality, the lands wondrously kissed by the seas and life without any other thought but its own growth by instinct, the sound of gulls and other wild things imaginable even at this distance. Makishima indulged in a musing, that what if all the world should be rendered as primal as this, there may be some semblance of true peace at last. But that was just a dream.

Kogami countered, "There isn't an existence that's insignificant. And as far as _you_ are concerned, I have not thought that way in ages."

"But aren't we talking of myself versus this world before us? How small I am in comparison to it?"

Shinya chuckled and had for a moment this desire to pull the other towards him and kiss but had fought the impulse, instead, returning a smile, "I am talking more about how I see  _my_ world as it stands."

"Is that a compliment?"

The island was for them both a haven free of chains. It was where no bickering existed between what was once arch-nemesis, the two of them admitting to flirting with their passions and drinking of its cup all they wanted. Much like what Kogami was planning for today; he was here intent on consummating yet another year of peace, to toast with this most unlikely of beings the fact that they were still leashed to life and living.

Or was it Fate's cruelty merely dragging on?

* * *

> //Crying over losses, deep ones,  
> Was never taught.  
> It's kind of human nature to show apathy.  
> Manipulating someone was,  
> Never, never taught.  
> But it is just human nature to find,  
> An unusual contempt in other's pain.  
> // Aayushi, “Human Nature”, 2018

A wise unknown once said that everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody really wants to die. It seemed the case when the automated drones had breached the skies of this paradise of an island in its pursuit, tracking Sibyl System's _Lost Kings_ finally and managing to reach this far on the face of the planet. Rather remote of a location but that was the point why they were here -they thought they were finally safe. But the arrival of these dark harbingers, with no valuation for emotion and that which pays the least importance to human life other than those it can enslave in its grasp, was proof enough that no place ever was for the two Kings. Even at this distance beyond civilization and modern conveniences, the past had caught up.

To say these  _machines_ were here for blood, that was underrated. They were here for more than just the massacre that had suddenly ensued, as if piloted by Gentleman Death they knocked upon these doors with a hail of both fire and bullets tearing through the small village the couple had dubbed as _family_ , seeing to it that each round of attacks harvested forth a body count in the aims of smoking out their true _targets_. Once either Shinya Kogami or Shogo Makishima gave up into the urge and fought back, it will be all over.

But what a steep price to pay. The lives they have harried including that of now, to the programming of Sibyl and its monstrously malevolent intentions, these were hardly reasonable to be counted as mere casualties to the game their _prey_ had thought to have stopped playing a long time ago.

* * *

He was riding Kogami into climax, shirt clipped between his lips as he sought to show him what was beneath his clothes, stimulating his own nipples and tugging at them harshly, the former enforcer below and thrusting in also quick to grab his  _male_ wife's hardness and stroke it in time that way they could be relieved together, allowing the other to collapse beside him on the mat as they had exhausted themselves after a second time, although, admittedly they were just not quite satiated yet at this point.

"I love you," Kogami mouthed when the _beautiful_ Asymptomatic turned his way, his fine silver tresses in disarray as he laid on that chest, the past hound no longer loathe to admit that he had developed and harboured affections for the other all this time. Despite the start of this union being a farce Sibyl itself had orchestrated on the grand scale. They both made it to this mutual emotion all of their own accord. Something which had Makishima leaning into that palm to smile. "And I, you," he confessed.

They had spent the afternoon in a hut built within the forest treetops, far off and in seclusion, given the location of these sacred forests. They were, to say, the least aware that outside, just beyond them, the village they had left was already being devoured by an inferno, the smoke rendering the air dark with soot and ashes, with the smell of burning flesh mingling with the cries rising in chorus to the heavens. It did not reach this place. The slaughter of the villagers which persisted whilst, unbeknownst to them from where they were inside the little shelter, the two were left to blissfully make love...

When Kogami was at last able to sense it, the ordeal had already stretched on a significant amount of time. Only once he had regained his wits about, stepping out of the interior to catch a breather, did he note from the terrace the rising indications of danger where he knew their home was. "Sho..." which triggered his immediate reaction to secure his male wife, Makishima emerging barely clad but safe behind him. The White King asked as Kogami's worries now shifted back to the village, the very same scenario still playing before them, "What is it Shin?"

There was a fire? No, this was worse; it was spreading way too fast for something that could have been accidentally started, besides the fact that the Black King felt something he hadn't felt in a long time at the sight, his worry beginning to rise in him due some unknown reason. He gritted his teeth, hands clenched against the wooden rails. "Get dressed," he told his lover. "We need to go back to the village."

Kogami had already turned his back while Makishima's stare lingered upon the undetermined catastrophe, the village seemingly converted into this massive, glaring stain within the green and lush when once it had meshed so beautifully and unobtrusively side-by-side with the nature around it. Only one thing came to his mind when he began to piece the scenario together: Sibyl.

He had seen omens of it but did not expect the day to come...had they finally reached the island?

* * *

The travel had been swift. The populace here had no prior knowledge but part of the _enhancements_ granted them during the hive mind's _experimentation_  involving the evolving King System was an advancement in speed and stealth, the increase and streamlining of features usually limited in mortal men helping to achieve such feats of strength. They hadn't used it in a while, but, Makishima noted, since Kogami was apparently preoccupied with a rising worry, how the factors in agility, stamina and speed were still very much increased, allowing them to traverse the way back in a hurry.

This felt great somewhat. That there was a freedom to these modified bodies that they had not used in a while yet can still freely utilize at the moment of an emergency. And today was such an emergency. They had to reach home quickly, had indeed achieved so but only a few minutes later after they've begun, faster than they'd predicted as they half-ran and half-seemingly-flown through the uneven island terrain.

Yet nothing could have prepared them for what awaited their return...

"What...has happened here?"

Kogami was in shock, more than Makishima had been as they beheld the damage up close, everything in the village on fire -everything that was once inhabited, thriving, familiar- now smoldering into ashes and rendered unrecognizable. What had become of this paradise?

"The villagers!

"Shogo!"

His male wife moved even before he was instructed to, rushing to the nearest house and calling out, as Shin was likewise fast to draw survivors out of this hellish chaos, pointing them towards the forests far off, "There! Pick others up along the way!"

"Lord Kogami!" That voice. It was his friend Kiko with his family in tow, faces covered with dirt, smeared by the tears of this unholy event. "Machines are attacking the village! They've lit the entire place!

"We can't-"

Trauma, hysteria almost, certain panic in those crying eyes. The look was all too familiar to the Kings as the signs of desperation that Kogami had to shake him out of it; while Makishima was pushing others on likewise, easily keeping a leveled perspective under duress. Now was not the time to lose one's composure.

"Get the living to safety, Kiko. We'll look for others," was Shinya's assurance.

"Lord Kogami, the chieftain-"

"We'll scour the area for him," Makishima interjected with a nod, a pat on his shoulder, egging their acquaintance on along with the rest, all of whom seemed to look at them both as if their very survival depended on their judgments now. They had placed such a heavy burden upon themselves and the two, although if this had ever been Sibyl's doing, then that would mean this village would no longer stay secured for long, if not for the villagers then for them, him and Shinya perhaps to consider leaving as soon as they can.

However, that needed to be set aside at the moment, his advice clear and set on self-preservation to everyone they'd met along the way: "Make for the safety of the Sacred Hills!

"You all must not linger here."

* * *

"Machines. What do you suppose had he been referring to? Had _they_ finally trailed us here?" Makishima wanted to confirm suspicions, running alongside Kogami, both reaching the community stables to kick off the gates and free the horses, letting them run away from the fire. The villagers had already done the same with the other livestock, freeing them from their pens although unfortunately half of the herds seemed to have already died by suffocation; likewise they're too late to save the crops. Those they had no choice but to count off as losses, the best to do now was get to the irrigation dam. It had been designed so they can flood the land and help put any instances of ground fire off when the need arose, a need they hadn't counted to come so soon. Also that it was a long dash off, almost to the other side of the village, the couple needing to fight their way through this nightmare of a day.

_'Who could have done such an atrocity?'_ was what plagued Shinya's mind however at the back of it he also knew. It was just difficult to accept that their years of seclusion might have already come to an end.

The most unnerving of all this were the lives lost, everywhere they looked either the trace of corpses and the trapped dead, a mop of zinged hair, a shriveled hand reaching out of the pile, a group of bodies huddled together in one and another house. Quiet remnants and unrecoverable things that told stories of how their neighbours had definitely struggled up to the very end, making Shinya Kogami's heart sink as they ran through the thickness and the suffocation of all this smoke.

"I can't tell where we're going! Shin!"

This travel seemed to take an eternity. The trees this part of the stretch rendered gnarled and twisted, even catching the blaze to now resemble those Dante had envisioned in one of his Circles of Hell in the Divine Comedies. They needed to leap off and dive, struggling their way past many obstacles, doubting that they'd find anyone else alive around here, reaching what appeared to be _ground zero_ where all this had began. Pointless, it seemed, though what drove them on was each other, that promise to Kiko that made Kogami move and, in turn, moved Makishima to follow him.

When they finally reached dead centre, there was barely anything left. What with the thickness of all the ash and embers that still caught other volatile substances to burn anew, the once coloured site of the Chieftain's Hut had now just fallen into shambles, appearing to have taken much of the impact. They did not know where to actually begin in their search, yet, following the scent of death that was abundantly wafting, it was simple enough to find the departed here, the couple coughing up and squinting as they tried to penetrate a small wall of flames and smoke, finding a gap that they could leap through. Thankfully, part of their revitalized bodies were capable of suppression, breathing needing to be minimized what with how little oxygen there was at the moment. They also put to the test their tougher skin, engineered for such extreme conditions, products of Sibyl's interventions when the Kings were redone to suit certain needs.

Now they couldn't help but recall what had been done them, however, knew it was not the time to reminisce. They still had the job to confirm matters since in this case they were no longer hoping to find anyone amongst the living around. It was a definite, given how similar to an oven the place had become, with very sparse ground to use threading through, unintelligible anarchy lined with death on all fronts greeting their enhanced senses. They were the only ones able to make this rescue...if there was anyone left to rescue.

"Let's flood the place!"

"The dam should be straight due left of you, Shin!"

Kogami need not waste a second. He made a fast sprint then leapt into a mushroom cloud recently made by a fire that had died out, creating a clearing for him, arms crossed to shield his face against whatever it was that awaited him on the other side. He was heading directly towards that gated area where the facilities he had built along the river stood, leaving his male wife to seek out the remains of the village head if he could. They had already spotted some six bodies strewn across the area, charred and utterly mutilated by bullets, the traces of large shells still scattered about.

Makishima deduced the machines Kiko was referring to were actually those termed as the _flyers_. He was familiar with them during those days five years past, having worked with these inventions closely, similar in sense to the Kings they were patterned for, the sort that made no sound but would execute their quarry with murderous precision. Could use a bit of finesse but what use would a war machine be if they could not at all strike fear in the hearts of the enemies? They had been programmed to brutally execute. It was that stoic cruelty that made them so effective on the field.

"This must be him?" The semi-blackened band of honour gave him away, as were the tattoos on what still remained of him under the rubble.

Shogo had such tolerance for the bloody that when he'd found the Chieftain, his body in three places and in that grotesquely mangled state, he did not at all stir. It actually played at his more macabre of a side, the former criminal mastermind admitting that the appearance of burnt skin that was almost leathery under this light, cracking and oozing with whatever was being discharged by its damaged insides was as artful as a Botticelli. _Nein_. This madness was a Picasso or a Van Gogh, a horror incomparable, even more so since those eyes were still open and looking. It had definitely seen the carnage unfold in its last moments, despair immortalized in that expression that it was beautiful.

Makishima smiled. Good enough that Shinya hadn't returned to see him _revel_ in the moment. He knew his lover would take this opportunity to pay his respects. Not he. Observation and note was what had him kneeling down the side of the once-head of the village and searching. A slip-up of his more extreme of personalities, no matter if he knew that he'd calm down later once again. He was relishing these small chances.

"As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death," Makishima could not help but bring up the quote, believing despite the cynicism in him that at least the Chieftain has had satisfaction before his demise, reaching a hand to close those staring eyes, painting his own hand with bleeding traces and black. The Elder was a man who perhaps didn’t want to die without any scars, in which case, he had earned his wish. He'd died in the most cruel and scarring an irony of ways, split in halves by the same guns still in the vicinity certainly and perhaps were training on other hapless victims. Or them.

Was it time to confront the demons that made even greater monsters of them at last? The battlefield had been brought them after all. It would be blasphemy not to retaliate.

But as always he was leaving the decision to Shinya.

* * *

The dam burst forth, drenching the immediate and surrounding areas with blessed water that's quenched the flames and stopped it from spreading even farther, the reunited couple both assuming that whomever was still breathing at this point had already made it to the forests. They themselves would have made it back to their house, though feared most of it could have been destroyed by now, the purpose really was to at least salvage whatever books were left. More important than lives, the collection took greater precedence than humanity, Makishima believed. Those volumes would never betray nor slander nor, like Sibyl, purposely steal other people's lives by hellfire or stagnation.

Shogo gazed up. Shinya wasn't looking at all too well. He felt him angered by such evil. As earlier there were screams they couldn't pinpoint reaching its heights only to fade in the background, replaced by the roar of an explosion and even more ample destruction certainly, this land collapsing on its own as their hard work was mauled and torn. He watched his husband despair yet wept not. Not yet. There was no time to mourn. In him was vengeance needing to be quenched and he knew how to do so. There was but only one logical way and Shogo likewise felt it in their shared connection, something that had only seemed to become stronger the longer it had been kept hidden within them.

"If this is what you truly want, _beloved_ , I shall follow you even to the cold depths of _Judecca_ ," as his White King, Makishima swore, sensing the heat glide upon the skin of his arm just over where their marriage tattoos were etched forever in ink. He could feel the Nano-Mechanisms in him awaken, quiet and neglected all these years yet still true to the purpose by which they had been implanted in them both. The Neu-Dominators then pulsed to life, the gun-like inventions pooling to reassemble upon the surface with a glow all their own, like a torch lit within this darkness, in this unwelcomed madness brought about by such cold adversaries.

It ends now. This silence. Shinya Kogami had both decided of it for them. They couldn't live in peace among people after all. Not until Sibyl _dies_ with its demented ideologies.

* * *

To think they'd be left alone was a delusion. As the weapons manifested upon their skin in circles of code, as both Kings sprung into action, they knew it was all over. They will have to run once more in the face of their pursuers, but not before destroying these armed drones that had already taken enough lives. Kogami was the first to draw blood, raising his arm where the enhancement just hovering across his skin in projection was, a finger feeling for a trigger that was made of dark light yet rendered solid by Nano-tech, squeezing that until it fired a beam, having found its first target and exploding the alerted unit.

> //A better life is an universal desire.  
> But is the disdain, given by you, doing justice to the better life you and others want?  
> No.  
> Why, then, are you seeking attention  
> Which wasn't taught?  
> You aren't the owner of the world,  
> Nor the fury of nature.  
> // Aayushi, “Human Nature”, 2018

A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. And the clear aim here was to not add any more to the number, Shinya speeding forward with his weapon drawn, Shogo right behind him on equal footing. They had not battled like this in a while, but it was something they had come prepared to do, the activation of the King System Technology on the island enough of a bait to lure all the machines out to meet them.

These drones looked no different than helicopters, smaller in size but not truly built any less in firepower, guns immediately trained upon the couple, to capture or kill if one was not possible, prompting Makishima to interface, malfunctioning one then two of the machines before the others had wizened up and locked their own programming within, hailing bullets at the Kings that it effectively separated them.

"I'll take the rest here in one go!"

"Right!"

"Keep safe!"

He shouldn't have worried. It was not an issue as Shogo parried from the bullet fire, sliding backwards and, raising his Neu-Dominator, targeted the drone chasing him. There was a long beam that emanated then the machine all but imploded, the burning wreck falling that he had to bust out of its circumference. He still was best at close and singular confrontations after all, seeing the need to deal with three more dogging his coattails as he caught sight of his husband briefly heading the opposite direction with his own drones chasing. All this might have already been sent to the hive mind's notice, but Makishima's interference was jamming the signals at least, in brief hindrances that needed to be balanced out with his Dominator use. He needed to find that transmitting _mother_ drone and take it out first. And fast...

In the System, when it came to strength, Shinya Kogami was the King of choice, his reach farther than Makishima despite the both of them being trained to function as a unit. But never mind that now. His male wife was dealing with his own pursuers and so must he, the machines humming as they hovered right behind him, firing after his steps. He had to evade. Kogami was past aggravated. He was seething, an emotion he had not felt in a while. It had him seeing red, emotion painting his sights though the more it nagged at him, the more his blood pumped and his adrenaline rushed, making his movements all the faster, using a collapsed tree trunk to bound up and over, flipping to land behind a boulder for cover. Before he led them to a clearing when the rock was split in half by larger ammunition, luring them further out as he broke into a sprint. He was thankful the fires had sizzled down, but was slightly worried for his lover. He heard something explode somewhere and hoped that was the other's doing.

But there was an issue at hand, Kogami skidding to a stop where a debris pile was in the way that he didn't scale. He had to do it now, summon to the heavens, actually, to the satellites endlessly orbiting the planet, one of which was the locked beta weaponry launched before their escape. He was honestly surprised that it was still able to go online.

"Make it rain!"

And fire at will, Kogami escaping to the side as beams fell from the skies, bright that it cut through the tragedy's darkness further in a manifestation the villagers saw as hope, while to the monitors of Sibyl was a sign of their presence. He watched the lasers skewer the machines, effectively splitting, exploding and ultimately destroying them, the sound echoing like some herald declaration. Fitting of an ode for the deaths brought them this day, and for what death the Black King was planning. No matter if it was forbidden to kill; he was not going to be seen as a murderer and punished. He was aiming to end something that should not have existed in the beginning and he will do so to the sound of trumpets. As Makishima himself took down the drone he had targeted, that having likewise been destroyed leaving the rest to fall like flies without their brain all around him. A flaw in the machine designs. Likewise the System's judgement that still relied so heavily on sending these dumb robots to do the bidding they cannot even personally do themselves. As the waters continued to flood this ruined earth. The tragedy was done, but he knew the battle was far from over...

> //The rights been given to you,  
> Is intact and joyful in itself.  
> You need to make no fun on others, because you are a human,  
> And you hurt them.  
> Don't let your freedom be futile,  
> And do not waste your vitality,  
> To mortify and shadow them.
> 
> Because you are never taught this.
> 
> It is only the human nature.  
>  // Aayushi, “Human Nature”, 2018

What was once a flourishing green had now but turned to dark and grey, around them, the world had once again crumpled, reminiscent of the past they had shunned to look back into but couldn't help being pulled back onto. Life in peace was never possible for those who were once touched by the System. It would follow them below and above if it wanted, follow them to every corner of this planet where they may. There was nowhere left to run. Nowhere left to seek any renewed salvation. Who was Kogami deceiving? They were not meant to outrun the situation.

Makishima was more or less calmer in his response, the normal asymptomatic in him able to view all this with a wider ideal, despite standing over the rubble of the village that he admittedly was fond of for a variation of reasons, despite hearing the mourning cries of families orphaned, of bonds destroyed in this one instance, on their wedding anniversary no less. The irony of fate, _‘a clear consciousness of an eternal agility, of the infinitely abundant chaos’_ , as Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel once said, _chaos_ which the Asymptomatic had come to accept long ago.

In the end, in the face of this despair, the tragedies that abound, he was more or less a person who did not care of what the anarchy that had managed to seep its way to this utopia that they had began to create for themselves. But looking at the face of his husband, at the only person he has drawn his life around of and has come to believe in, gazing at the utter dismay he had upon his expression, he somehow related to the anguish that was there. Enough that he too felt it. Also that reopened link to the King System. It was alive once more. Not surprising that Sibyl had kept their little science project alive. Not surprising that they'll find them here again. Would it not be better to consider abandoning the life here now?

Makishima wanted to leave Kogami’s side. He wanted to salvage what he could from their house somehow, perhaps enough for them to carry in the journey that was sure to follow this. They must prepare. It will be the longer road ahead. There was no time to hesitate and this was the only logical path. He likewise longed for one book. Even just a single paperback.

But if the fire still raged, then there was nothing that could be done and he accepted that too. He shall do nothing more. To Makishima, this was already farewell, and, although to his core he believed that even bad books are books and therefore sacred, he has already made the conclusion of letting the blaze engulf them if they already were in the pyre made of their own home here. A fitting offering to the gods that be, the burning pages, memories, of that which they had both accumulated and will need to desert.

"The life on this island would not be spared too long," Kogami spoke as Makishima paused for him, as the former enforcer laced their hands together, the latter feeling a tremble along those fingertips. In the end, the only solace here was each other. To think they had survived in such fragile tranquility for so long only for that to be taken away in such a horrid manner.

Congratulations to Sibyl System then. Its collective had once more proven itself a force that brought nothing but despair wherever they may roll. That angered Kogami. This _fire_ welling within him was all but bitter hate. Why -why had the hive-mind not left them alone?

Makishima watched his expressions change once again, but then decided to just as calmly proceed. Losing rationality was not the trait of a _King_. He knew what intentions there were running in his husband's mind at the moment. It was most dangerous that he will have to ease his tempers down. The reason why he was the _White_ of their cooperation. It was his role to take Kogami's anger.

"Then we must decide when," was the suggestion he offered. "We had perhaps let this drag on for far too long. It's our own undoing."

Kogami couldn't agree more. As always, there was rationality and the very truth in those words.

As part of the requiem for everyone deceased, the White King decided to turn to one of his favourite poems, versing it out clearly over the roaring flames while his husband mourned silently beside. Kogami still had his humanity. Makishima loved that side of him, that he could still cry and hurt and feel...some things he lost grip upon or just no longer had the capacity in him for.

He uttered as if in a orison, _Fallen Troy_ :

_"Priam is the king of ashes,_  
 _"heroes die and gods lament,_  
 _"'round his head, his kingdom crashes_  
 _"now the ten years’ war is spent._  
 _"Nights in flames and no one sleeping._  
 _"Trumpets scream across the plains._  
 _"Charging horsemen, women weeping._  
 _"Tis but all that now remains._  
 _"Tis but not the sound of gladness._  
 _"Nor the victors' face of joy._  
 _"This I hear and see in sadness_.  
_"When I think of fallen Troy."_

" _'When I shall die, let it be doing that I had **designed** '_ ," Makishima quoted Ovid when at last he had done, feeling a squeeze to his digits that was certainly his husband's. He lifted that hand to his lips and kissed it gently, his reassurance that he will be here, damn everything else, as again the crowns of fate had fallen on the head of whom it was destined for thinking that the next approach was not a sign of arrogance especially for the king who seeks to rule over his own life. That is what he is there for. To be all used up by Shinya Kogami when he dies. Their prey: that accursed System that put them in this position since the beginning.

" _'Death pays all debts'_ ," Makishima leaned a head against that shoulder, watching what his lover was gazing at. Kogami was not very happy of what needed to be done but he was not changing his mind, all this before him only solidifying that resolve. He wiped off the dirt on his face, more like allowed it to mar his otherwise gorgeous features further.

He replied to his male wife, " _'But Death is never an apology.'_ "

To him, making those in need of it _suffer_ was going to be the ideal...


End file.
